Lupin Farm ~ Updated photos of the goat pen in progress

[lupinfarm]

I had one of these before but I'm one of those people who can't stick to anything. I'm like vegetable oil, except I don't make everything oily... I just make everything not stick.. I think Pam would be better actually.

Welcome to Lupin Farm, a working to self-sufficient (slowly and badly) hobby farm in the township of Stirling-Rawdon, north of Belleville, Ontario.

In addition to our crazy English family of 4, Lupin Farm is also home to 2 horses, 2 Pygmy goat does, 19 chickens, 3 ducks, 6 dogs, and a considerable amount of "characterful" kittys.

 

[justusnak]

Beautifull place!!! Wow, I am so envious of all that land!

 

[lupinfarm]

So it was pouring out yesterday and the night before and there I am in a soaked and hardly waterproof winter coat, wellington boots, doing my best in all my hurricane gear (okay, more like lightly raining) to switch up buckets, cover roundbales, collect feed pans when... shock... my boot comes off and what do I do? I don't stop walking thats for sure! I keep on walking RIGHT INTO A HUGE PUDDLE. So here I am yelling over to my brother "GET OUT THE ARK, I THINK WE'RE GOING TO NEED TO PADDLE TO SAFETY." Secretly I sensed my horses were laughing at me.

After falling about half a million times on wet ice, I finally made it up the driveway only to realize the mail lady had just come and delivered the mail and now I would have to walk all the way down the 900ft driveway to retrieve the mail before it got too wet to read.

 

[lupinfarm]

Beautifull place!!! Wow, I am so envious of all that land!

Believe it or not, we only have 8.38 acres! Of course most of it seems to have been given over to my horsey obsession...Oops!

 

[ksalvagno]

Hi Lupin, you seem to be everywhere!

 

[lupinfarm]

I know right lol I've got this whole omnipresence thing down to a fine art now I think..

 

[big brown horse]

 

[lupinfarm]

I want to throw my arms up in the air right now!

Performance Poultry was supposed to be open for business yesterday taking orders, but as I am to understand it there is something wrong with the ordering system and they're trying to fix it but I'm sooo so so super excited to order our 5 Buff Chantecler hens and Buff Chantecler roo that I've been sitting here all day clicking on the "orders" tab waiting for it to pop up and say HELLLOOOO ORDER NOWWW.

And to top it off, our 14 red hens are finding new homes. I have someone coming tomorrow to pick up 10 hens and I have 4 more that are staying here until they moult out properly. Baldy hen, our permanently bald headed hen, will probably meet an untimely end at the chopping block. She never moulted out for some reason and she looks awful.


COMMMEEEEEEEE PP!! I WANT TO ORDDEERRRRRR

 

[ksalvagno]

Do you like doing the all in all out thing or are you just tired of the red hens?

My chickens aren't even a year old yet so I'm not ready to get rid of any but I found some Blue Laced Red Wyandotte chickens at Meyer Hatchery that I would LOVE to add. I know it is bad to add them but I'm having a hard time resisting those chickens. They are lovely and supposedly are very good layers.

 

[lupinfarm]

The Red Hens are from a major hatchery here and I'm just not that impressed with them. They're RIR/Col. Rock crosses and they just don't lay as I'd like, and we've had some health problems (like baldy hen!). They'd be great as free range for people who aren't too interested in looks lol. Also since I don't heat, I'd prefer pea combed birds which my EE's are, as are the Chanteclers which we plan on getting.

The 4 that are left, if they don't make a turn around in a month or so will be hitting the chopping block. My leftover hens will be moving into my goat house (6x6 little house with a run off the back even though they free range) and my goats are moving into the big chicken house because we need more space for the goats and our chicken house is just not really up to chicken keeping standards. It's better suited to goats.